Hong Kong’s top court allows appeal against decision to acquit Tiananmen vigil group member of incitement
- Justice department’s appeal against Chow Hang-tung’s acquittal approved as case involves points of ‘great and general importance’, three judges say
- Chow’s conviction was quashed in December by a High Court judge
Hong Kong’s highest court has allowed the justice department to appeal against a judge’s decision to acquit an activist of incitement over alleged calls to join an unauthorised assembly to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Three Court of Final Appeal judges on Thursday ruled that Chow Hang-tung’s case involved two legal points of “great and general importance”, the test for a successful appeal request.
Chow, 38, was jailed for 15 months in January last year after a magistrate found her guilty of inciting others to take part in a banned candlelight vigil at Victoria Park on June 4, 2021.
A High Court judge quashed her conviction in December on the grounds that police had failed to discharge their positive duty to facilitate the intended gathering, rendering its ban on the vigil unlawful.
But the judge accepted her ruling entailed legal implications which deserved further scrutiny by the city’s top court.
Prosecutors had questioned whether an accused facing a charge of inciting an unauthorised assembly should be allowed to defend themselves in trial by casting doubt on the legality of police banning the gathering.
They also called into question the correct approach by the court in considering a defence challenge to the lawfulness of the police order.
Hong Kong court convicts 3 Tiananmen vigil group members over failing to aid police
The substantive appeal will be heard by a full panel of five judges in the top court in November.
Chow is currently detained in the maximum-security Tai Lam Prison under the Beijing-imposed national security law on charges of inciting subversion in connection with her role as vice-chairwoman of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
She was last jailed for 4½ months in March for refusing to assist national security police in an investigation into the alliance’s alleged subversion offence. She and two other former standing committee members have lodged an appeal against the convictions.
The alliance had held a June 4 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park since 1990 to mark the crackdown on the democratic movement in Beijing a year earlier. The annual event was the only large-scale commemoration of the incident on Chinese soil.
3 Tiananmen vigil group members jailed for 4½ months in Hong Kong
The vigil was banned in 2020 on public health grounds related to the pandemic. The 2021 event was prohibited for similar reasons, before the alliance’s dissolution in September that year.
Police have alleged the vigil was intended to provoke public hatred towards authorities in an effort to revive the 1989 movement and overthrow the central government.
